Enterprise’s Culture-Cognition And Its Effect On Involvement In Place Branding

The globalization of economy and culture has a profound impact on every city,region, even country. In increasingly fierce global competition for the resources,technology, trade, tourism, residents and some other strategic resources, place branding gains more and more popularity. Giving a place the distinctive characteristic which is different from its competitors’ seems to have become a significant differential strategy of economic and social development of a city, region and even the whole country. However, unlike the increasingly popular practice of place branding,the existing theoretical research is still lack of discussions about the driving factors and mechanism of involvement of stakeholders in place branding. So, being based on the institutional theory and from the perspective of cultural-cognitive institution, this paper used qualitative research method and empirical test method to explore the structural connotation of enterprise’s culture-cognition in place branding and the driving mechanism of enterprise’s involvement in place branding.The results show that, enterprise’s culture-cognition in place branding can be divided into four dimensions: Collective beliefs, traditional norms, conventional routines and role orientations. Collective beliefs are generated by self achievement,benefit acquisition and vision orientation; Traditional norms include emotional attribution, traditional customs and unity consciousness; Conventional routines include mutual consensus, implicit norms and thinking orientation; Role orientations are derived from responsibility consciousness, voluntary consciousness as well as learning consciousness.The predictive results show that, all of the dimensions, like collective beliefs,traditional norms, conventional routines and role orientations can actively promote enterprise’s involvement in place branding. From high to low, the order of positive influence of each dimension on enterprise’s involvement is role orientations,traditional norms, collective beliefs and conventional routines. Enterprise’s involvement in place branding has a significant positive impact on the performance of place branding.The multi-dimensional model of enterprise’s culture-cognition in place branding,which is composed of 4 dimensions and 12 factors, reveals the structural connotation of the enterprise’s culture-cognition in place branding, and provides a theoretical basis for the in-depth understanding of enterprise’s culture-cognition in place branding. At the same time, in this paper, the driving mechanism model of enterprise’s involvement in place branding empirically proves that the various dimensions of enterprise’s culture-cognition in place branding have a positive effect on enterprise’s involvement in place branding. The influence of enterprise’s involvement on the performance ofplace branding is also be cleared. All of these research results can provide theoretical guidance for place branding.